The Social Teacher

I am so sad I wait to do this at this time of the school year.  I wish I could do it at least one or twice a month.  This activity was from the Mindfulness training I did way back in February. This lesson is an extenstion off of lesson Week 8.  One way to show generosity is using kind words to each other and use words of encouragement. I gave each student two sticky notes.  One sticky is a compliment to a friend, the other words of encouragement of their self.  I loved reading there responses!

 Being Mindful is also about being kind and generous.   This is a quick lesson about how to be and show generosity.   After watching the video, I give the students take to think about how someone has shown you generosity in our classroom? I make a list.  (HERE IS OURS) Then I ask... How can we show generosity? We think of many ways, I write them down.  Then an idea popped into my head.  Teacher Appreciation is coming up.  My students created cards for all of the teachers in our building to show them generosity.   They were so excited about these cards. They were proud of themselves, and they wanted these cards to look their absolute best.  Here are some of them below! They were so adorable! 

First how is the Mindful resource bucket going... 1. We had to talk about how only one student can use it at a time.  2. You use it for two minutes, then go back to your seat.  3. No one will use the calming jar, only a teacher can hold it.  4. Use it only during lessons, not when you are coming back from recess.   It is going well.  It has been used at the correct times, and the incorrect times.  It is a learning process for us all.  This week is about being aware of your emotions and how to control them using mindful moments.  After watching the video, we mostly discussed the emotion: mad. My students and I talk about our emotions daily.  We discuss how to control our emotions during the day. The one we struggle with is being mad.  After watching the video, we discussed that it is okay being mad.  It is going to happen.  I even told them that teachers get mad.  But how we control our anger can be helpful using mindful moments.  I showed them a poster about Labeling Your Thoughts.  Af

Quick...the floor is lava! We all know this game.  You say, "The Floor is Lava" and the person has ten seconds to find somewhere to get off the floor.  It is hilarious watching those videos.  I got this lesson walking through school one day and saw in a classroom, students doing something like this. I don't know if this is exactly what they were doing, but this is what I turned it into.   This STEM activity I used as a filler.  If my students were done with their math page and had a little bit of time before the next lesson, I had them complete this activity.   Each group of students get three plastic cups, 3 popsicle sticks, 4 index cards, and three little bear/penguin counters.  The objective of the game is to get the three bears as far off the ground as possible.  The students love trying to their work done quickly so they can try to get their bears the highest.  This was this groups idea today! 

 If you read yesterday's Blog on being aware of your emotions, you learned the biggest part of being mindful is understanding and noticing your emotions.  When you notice that your body isn't listening to the teacher, or you are really mad and can't control your emotions it is time to give yourself a mindful moment.   Most of those moments are intentional breathing: crab hands, star ball, and today BEANIE BABY BREATHING.  When I explain how to take a deep breath, student really understand what I mean by that.  I have the students lie down on the floor and put a beanie baby on their bellies.  When they breath in their beanie babies should go up, and when they breathe out their beanie baby should go down.   This is a great visual of want your intentional breaths should look like. Their minds will be clearer when they do their Mindful Moments on their own.  

 How many thoughts do you think you have a day? Too many to count right?  This week's Mindful Monday lesson is all about thoughts.  Good thoughts and bad thoughts.  The bad thoughts are your thoughts that distract you during the day.  After watching the video, my students and I compared our thoughts to the Zones of Regulation.  We talked about our good thoughts mean we are in the green because we are using our thoughts to help us learn and stay focused on what we are learning to grow. We also talked about our distracted thoughts mean we are in the yellow.  And our mad or angry thoughts are in the red.   My students had a good understanding of the thoughts and how to help them learn or the ones that distract them.   I decided to try something, and we will see how it goes.  I placed a bucket our mindful resources for my students to use while I am teaching.  If a student is noticing their thoughts are distracting them, they can go use them, take a quick break and come back to what we

 5 Senses...we use them every day...but have you really slowed down and actually look and see it? Or listen? Or smell? Or feel it? Or hear it?  We all take those things for granted and it is when we don't have it is when we actually noticed it.  It is amazing that we have our five senses.   Our Mindful Mondays are lessons from the MHA of Sheboygan County.  My district had the amazing opportunity to get trained in a mindful classroom.  These lessons that I have talked about are all from them.   We first watched the video of the speaker explaining how to use our five senses and noticing the amazing things around us.  A mindful moment is taking the present moment and giving us kindness and grace for a moment to completely focus on one thing, take a break, and go back to real life.  Our five senses can help us to that.  The students practiced taking a mindful moment and took a moment to listen to the noises around them and then we discussed them.  And then we talked about how good it f

The title itself explains what it is...it is a station were the students creations flow.  I take any art supplies: scrap paper, construction paper, glue, scissors, paint, egg cartons, bingo dotters, popsicle sticks, pipe cleaners, stickers, puffy stickers...serious you name it, we use it!  And the students just create.  CREATE! Without any rules, expectations, the students just go at it! I do give it a time limit (20-30 minutes). The student's attention span last only about 30 minutes.  This is a great way to see my student's creative side and their personality can shine through.   Make sure you leave enough time for the cleanup and plastic bags for projects to put in.  

 I have a quick and easy STEM project to do with your students.  This doesn't need a ton of materials either.  It is called: The Longest Chain. I am not sure where I got this idea, I saw it online somewhere. When I find it, I will post it.  But today was a good day to do it.  It was an indoor recess day and the students didn't need a Work N Play time because indoor recess has used up a lot of our indoor playtime.  I didn't want to the students to go on Ipads either.  So we did this activity.  You only need 20-30 minutes, depending on your students.  You need: scissors, glue stick, and one piece of typing paper. The objective is to have the long paper chain.  I first show how to make a paper chain. Then I tell them they need to first think about how they are going to make it the longest.  I gave my students 30 minutes.  At first, I gave them 20 minutes.  I noticed my students really struggling with this activity, so I gave them 10 more. My students really struggled with doin

 I can't say this word enough: MODEL! To model is to imitate.  If you aren't seeing your students playing the board games correctly by now, take a break and start model how to play a board game.  Maybe your reading specialist, cross categorical teacher, a paraprofessional, or even better your principal come in a play on of the board games and model positive behavior and negative behavior.  EXAMPLE OF POSITIVE:  *Model using a game that your students love to play but struggle regulating their feelings.  Have at least three adults playing and play the game.  Say nice things to each other, follow the rules, and when you lose say oh well, next time. The winner will say good job and give high fives.  During this whole time, you are explaining your thinking.  Say out loud because it is going clockwise.  EAMPLE OF NOT BEING ABLE TO REGULATE FEELINGS:   *Now, model how to play negatively.  Start by arguing who goes first, then start by arguing about who goes next.  Then, whomever is lo